Play Dead

by Anne Frasier

  "I thought you were going to drop the charges."

  "I said we'd think about it," Elise said.

  "I told you everything you wanted to know."

  "Yes, but you also admitted to almost killing me. You're a smart man. Surely you can't expect us to responsibly release someone with your history."

  "A history of attempted murder," Gould added.

  "You need me!" LaRue said. "You know you need me!" He glanced up at the guard, then back to Elise. "This isn't over, is it? You'll be back, won't you? I helped you today. I can help you again."

  "We'll consider it and let you know."

  He jumped to his feet.

  Gould shot upright, prepared to hit him if the occasion called for it. The guard stepped forward to stand to LaRue's left.

  "When?" he asked, looking from Gould to Sandburg. "When will you get back to me?"

  "Hard to say," Sandburg told him.

  LaRue glared at her.

  BITCH!

  She was enjoying this, enjoying keeping him in the dark, toying with him. His anger shifted to Detective Gould. What did that reject know? LaRue thought with resentment. He'd never been picked on, never had anyone laugh at or make fun of him.

  As if in silent communication, the detectives turned and began walking away.

  LaRue held his cuffed hands toward their retreating backs. "I'm going to be fucked in the ass!" he sobbed.

  Chapter 33

  The evening of the LaRue interview, Elise picked up Audrey from school. In the courtyard behind the old Victorian, they grilled kabobs made with mushrooms, tofu, and mangoes, then walked to a nearby cafe for frozen yogurt. Afterward, Elise helped Audrey with her pitching in Pulaski Square.

  On the way back to Elise's, they passed a vendor selling a child's sleeveless dress with a no-puffer-fish design on the front.

  Kinda cute, Elise thought.

  The red-and-white sign had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It could be found on the windows and doors of every eating establishment in town, even McDonald's. It was a version of the no-smoking sign, only instead of a cigarette, it sported a puffer fish with a red diagonal line through it. Underneath, it read: no exotic fish sold here. Many restaurants had removed fish from their menu completely.

  "This is so cool." Audrey held up a T-shirt, checking for size. ‘Visit Savannah, We dare you.’

  How did these things appear so quickly? Elise wondered. Was there a secret factory somewhere in the United States, always on standby in order to pump out souvenirs for every disaster that came along?

  An even hotter item was the latex glove. Since the mode of TTX delivery hadn't yet been determined, people were being warned to wash their hands thoroughly and often, and to keep all cuts covered. The public had taken it upon itself to stock up on disposable gloves.

  Last Elise heard, the gloves were a fashion fad, with the purple and red ones being the gloves to be seen in. The local supply had been depleted, even the boring white gloves, and now people in other parts of the country, even the world, were putting up boxes on eBay, where the bidding could often go as high as fifty bucks. Which went to prove you could never put a price on style or health.

  "How much?" Elise asked the vendor.

  "Thirty dollars."

  "Thirty?" For a T-shirt?

  "Twenty."

  Elise pulled out her wallet and extracted some bills. "How about fifteen?"

  The woman quickly pocketed the money before a tourist happened by. "We have charms to go with the shirts," she said with a sweep of her hand.

  A basket in the corner held wangas. With the white T-shirt draped over one arm, Audrey picked up a wanga, sniffed it, and recoiled. "Ugh." She held it to Elise's nose.

  Sulfur.

  Elise was familiar with sulfur—a main ingredient in most root work.

  She'd seen people on street corners selling wangas for much less, but a person had to be careful. Those supposed wangas could be filled with leaves and grass out of the backyard. Not the real thing, with no powers of protection. Wearing a fake wanga would be like driving with a faulty seat belt or defective air bag. Unfortunately, there were always vultures out there ready to make a buck on someone else's misfortune.

  "How can people wear these?" Audrey made a face. "They smell awful."

  "It's worth it if it makes you feel safe."

  "Dad says this kind of stuff preys on people's fear."

  "It's not always a bad thing for people to believe a bag of herbs will protect them," Elise said. "It gives them a feeling of control in a situation in which they have none."

  Audrey tossed the charm back in the basket. "Thanks for the T-shirt, Mom." Audrey slipped the shirt with the puffer fish design over her tank top and they resumed their walk.

  Elise reached into her pocket and pulled out the wanga she'd been carrying for the past several days.

  Audrey stared at it. "Where'd you get that?"

  "Strata Luna made it for me."

  "She did?"

  "Would you like it?"

  Elise realized she might feel better if Audrey had the charm. It could offer her some protection.

  Audrey picked it up and sniffed it. "It doesn't smell as bad, anyway."

  "The herbs she used help cover up the sulfur."

  Audrey handed it back. "No, thanks."

  The fact that her mother carried a wanga obviously made Audrey uncomfortable. What would she think when she learned about Jackson Sweet?

  That line of thought reminded Elise of her last visit with Strata Luna. Would she come through with her birth mother's full name? If so, what would Elise do with it?

  Three more blocks and they were home.

  Their evening together had been somewhat of a success, but as Elise returned Audrey to the suburbs, she thought of her daughter's reaction to the wangas and was once again reminded of the differences between them. Not that she expected her daughter to be like her. That was egotistical and unrealistic. Audrey lived in a traditional, practical world while Elise continuously found herself straddling two cultures, neither of which fit. She could say she didn't believe in spells and wangas, but on a more primitive level she did. She also understood the power of the myth, a power that could never be discredited.

  Elise dropped Audrey off, then drove back downtown through dark, silent streets. Arriving home, she found a manila envelope with the Black Tupelo logo stuck in her door. Just a single sheet of paper with the name Loralie and the address of the Savannah Carmelite Monastery printed in large black letters.

  Chapter 34

  Elise's phone rang in the middle of the night.

  It was a Savannah Police Department dispatcher.

  "I know this is your night off," she said, "but there's a sticky note here saying we're supposed to call you if any dead bodies make an appearance."

  Elise took down the information, thanked the woman, and hung up. Then she called Gould. His car was still in the shop, his apartment on the way. "I'll pick you up," she told him.

  Gould was waiting on the front steps when she got there. He ran for the car and slid into the passenger seat as she pulled away.

  Heading toward the address given to her by the dispatcher, Elise filled him in on what little details she could. "The body was discovered in the courtyard of the Secret Garden Bed and Breakfast, currently unoccupied and under renovation."

  "Sex of the victim?"

  "Male."

  "Approximate age?"

  "Nothing on that."

  Elise knew they were getting close to the site before they reached it. Emergency lights flashed silently. Streets had been barricaded, and traffic was being redirected.

  After parking two blocks from the perimeter, Elise and David jumped from the car, flashlights in hand, doors slamming, the pounding of their shoes sounding hollow against the cement sidewalk as they walked rapidly in the direction of the lights.

  Even though it was the middle of the night, people had wandered out of their homes to watch. They huddled together on
sidewalks and in the street, snatches of conversation floating toward Elise and David.

  "Did you see anything?" a young female voice asked.

  "I heard somebody found a body."

  "I heard the head had been chopped off."

  "I heard somebody was wading in the pond and tripped over it."

  "Oh, man. That's sick! Really sick!"

  "Not the head, you idiot. The body."

  "That's sick too."

  To someone outside law enforcement, the scene may have appeared chaotic, but Elise automatically took note of the dividing lines that had been made to partition off witnesses, keeping them corralled until their stories could be taken down. Savannah Police Department used what they called the two-barrier method. The outer barrier was for press and gawkers, the inner barrier for the few people who were given permission to pass. Detectives and police officers were questioning people, tablets in hand.

  One of the officers spotted Elise and Gould. "Weird as hell," she whispered. "The place was dark. The gates were locked, but some kids sneaked in and went wading. One of them tripped over the body and thought it was a friend joking around until it just stayed there. Turns out, it had been weighted down with rocks."

  "Headless?" Elise asked.

  "No, but the throat's been cut."

  Elise glanced at David. Not our guy, they were both thinking.

  "What about lights?" Gould asked. Randomly placed police cars with spotlights were parked at odd angles, but it wasn't enough to adequately illuminate the crime scene.

  "Getting a generator set up."

  "Where's the body now?" Elise asked.

  "Still in the fountain," the officer said. "Or maybe I should say pond. It's huge—that's all I know. In the middle is kind of an island with a stone bench. I dragged him up there." She aimed the flashlight on herself. "Look at me."

  Her pants were wet from the thigh down. When she shifted her weight, her black leather shoes squeaked and water oozed out.

  "These shoes will never be the same. I wish I'd known he was dead. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble. And now I keep smelling him. Don't know if it's in my sinuses, or my clothes."

  The detectives thanked her and made their way up the brick walk.

  Elise turned on her flashlight as they stepped through the wrought-iron gates decorated with cherubs. "I've always loved this place." She'd visited a few times during the annual spring tour of gardens. "It's breathtaking under normal conditions."

  But not now ...

  The first thing that hit them was the sweet smell of magnolias mixed with the stench of death. Water trickled, and ferns grew from damp stone walls. There were boxwoods and trumpet vines, water poppies and hibiscuses. Nestled amid plants and trees were various kinds of statuary, from angels to frogs.

  David scanned the area using a high-powered flashlight beam. "Wow," he said, pausing to admire the twisted trunk of a Jerusalem tree. In the distance, crickets chirped and chimes made a soft, delicate sound.

  Elise was relieved to see that Abe Chilton was on duty. With some crime scene specialists, she had to tell them what to collect. Abe knew what he was doing.

  She and David had arrived so quickly that the preliminary preparations were still under way. It wasn't their shift, but Mason and Avery hadn't yet arrived, so Elise and David temporarily took charge.

  "Ready for daylight?" someone shouted.

  The sound of a generator drowned out the crickets and chimes. Everybody turned their backs. One second later, brilliant, blinding light flooded the area.

  Two EMTs stood in the center of the fountain, staring at the body at their feet. They looked up when the light came on, flinched, and raised their arms against the glare.

  "Water," Chilton muttered. "I hate water."

  Water destroyed evidence.

  "We've been trying to decide if I should go there or they should come here," Chilton said.

  "Best to go to the body," Elise said.

  Since the victim had initially been pulled from the water, it probably made no difference, but Elise always felt it was better to have too much information than too little.

  "Here they are."

  Chilton's intern ran up, as happy as a puppy, a pair of hip waders in his hand. Chilton grabbed them and raised them into the air. "Are we going to draw straws for these?"

  Elise heard a splash and turned to see Gould wading toward the center of the fountain, water hitting him above the knee, darkening his jeans.

  "You go ahead," she said.

  Chilton was wearing a suit and dress shoes, Elise, nylon sandals and the kind of drawstring cotton pants a teenager might lounge in. Almost proper swimming attire.

  She swung her legs over the stone barrier and stepped into the water.

  "You doll," Chilton said.

  He let out a satisfied sigh and put on the hip waders. Then he positioned himself on the cement wall surrounding the fountain, swung his legs over, and began sloshing through the water carrying a large gray case that resembled a fishing-tackle box.

  "I need more light," Chilton said when he reached the center. The foliage was dense and the single generated light stationed near the wrought-iron gates couldn't penetrate it. Immediately, powerful flashlights were directed on the body.

  Nude.

  Male.

  Late teens, early twenties.

  Moss was wrapped around the torso. A water lily clung to a forearm.

  "We've got some serious deterioration going on." Chilton poked around with a gloved hand. "Our guy's not a fresh fish."

  But then, a body could decompose fairly quickly in tepid shallow water under warm, humid conditions.

  "Did he move?" someone asked. "Did anybody else see that? Because I thought he moved."

  One of the EMTs jumped back and fell with a splash, water spraying.

  After everything that had occurred lately, it wasn't surprising to find people jumpy and suspicious about true and absolute death. But if the body had a slit throat and had been submerged.. . . not much room for doubt there.

  The EMT came sloshing out of the pond, bringing with him gallons of water.

  "He isn't going anywhere," Gould said. "Look." He waved his flashlight back and forth quickly across the victim. The shifting beam tricked the eye and made the body appear to move.

  Light and shadow.

  Someone sighed in relief.

  Not Elise. She directed her own flashlight beam on the victim. Even though the face was swollen, it was one she'd seen before. One she'd seen fairly recently.

  Enrique Xavier.

  Chapter 35

  There were times when the historic brick building that housed Police Headquarters seemed to inhale and exhale. Seemed to have a rhythm and heartbeat. You got used to it after a while, but when that rhythm was upset, you noticed. It was similar to a flock of blackbirds suddenly stopping their chatter. Or when a heart monitor flatlined.

  It was the change that got your attention.

  Elise was in her office with the phone to her ear, hoping the third time would be the charm and Strata Luna would pick up.

  She didn't.

  Were they going to have to issue a court order to bring her in for an interview?

  At that point, Elise became aware of a hollowness in the air. She hung up and sat there, testing the moment.

  The sensation reminded her of the stillness that came when the eye of a hurricane passed overhead. After hours of unending noise, after hours of the wind creeping under rafters and whistling through window cracks, finding and banging every tiny loose bit of anything—silence.

  Then you knew you had time to open the door and run outside into the hollow, echoless void.

  Elise opened her office door.

  The halls were silent and empty.

  The elevator motor kicked in. From downstairs, a beehive of sound began to build.

  People.

  Talking. Whispering.

  The elevator stopped on the third floor. The door opened and Strata Lu
na emerged.

  "Detective Sandburg." The agitated words were spoken through a black veil. She hurried over, dress billowing. "You must do something. You must catch the person who did this terrible thing. Enrique's killer can't be allowed to enjoy one more second of freedom."

  So much for a court order. "We're doing everything we can," Elise told her, knowing her words wouldn't be nearly enough to calm the upset woman. They were waiting on the lab results, and of course they were looking for TTX, but at the moment all involved were treating the Xavier case as nonrelated.

  David Gould turned the corner and appeared at the end of the long hallway. Upon catching sight of Strata Luna, he stopped, coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

  The noise downstairs increased. Pretty soon people would be making their way to the third floor with a sudden need to use the copy room.

  "Let's go into my office," Elise said.

  When they were all three inside, David closed the door and Elise pulled a chair around for their guest while the overhead fluorescent lights cast them in a green, twitching glow.

  Strata Luna sat down, then lifted the veil with both hands. Her face held the expected signs of stress and grief.

  "Would you mind if we took your statement?" Elise asked.

  "That's why I'm here."

  It wasn't common practice to take a statement in the privacy of their personal space, but considering the circumstances and Strata Luna's notoriety, Elise thought it wiser to remain where they were. Since they weren't set up to videotape, David called downstairs and was able to recruit a stenographer so Strata Luna's statement would hold up in court. Five minutes later they were questioning her, a young male stenographer clicking away while a small tape recorder ran silently on the desk in front of Strata Luna.

  The interview began with the usual name, age, address, and phone number.

  Then Elise moved on to questions relating to the case. "Did Enrique Xavier work for you?" she asked.

  "Of course he did."

  "Do you know anyone who may have wanted to harm him?"

  Strata Luna pulled a tissue from a deep pocket of her black dress. "I keep asking myself that question." A tear ran down her cheek. "Could it be somebody he knows?" She wiped the tear away with a trembling hand. "Can you tell things like that? By how the body was found?"